TEGFYNYDD, Llanfallteg, Carmarthenshire 2009

A return to Tegfynydd at the end of March on a sunny afternoon. After thirteen years little had changed. The house and its grounds hold a romantic and tranquil atmosphere.

Tegfynydd was originally a Georgian house, but was replaced and renovated circa 1885 by Christopher Morgan, to a Victorian Gothic house and is thus very untypical of the Carmarthenshire home.

Visiting it was an unexpected pleasure and although I had seen a photograph in Thomas Lloyd’s Lost Houses of Wales, it did not lay a solid enough platform for the emotional impact Tegfynydd has on the visitor, accidental or planned.

A huge stone fireplace stands in the main hall whose floor, once the winter leaves are swept aside, reveals a splendid multi-coloured mosaic.